BP's 'top kill' operation on Gulf oil spill to be on live feed

26 May 2010 05:52[Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (ICIS news)--UK energy giant BP agreed to provide a live video feed of its planned "top kill" operations at the Gulf of Mexico that should plug a ruptured well, a statement from the US government said late on Tuesday.

"BP confirmed May 25, 2010 that following detailed discussion with the National Incident Commander, Admiral Thad Allen, it will continue to provide live video feeds from the seabed throughout the planned ‘top kill’ procedure," the statement added.

The operation, which would take two days to complete, was expected to be activated on Wednesday morning (US time), it added.

The well, located 5,000 feet below the ocean's surface, started spewing oil into the seabed on 20 April, when BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank off the coast of Louisiana. The ruptured well has been gushing out an estimated 5,000 barrels a day of oil for more than a month.

US president Barack Obama announced a plan to travel to the Louisiana state again on Friday to check on the ongoing clean-up and containment efforts, according to a separate government statement.

“The administration will continue to hold the responsible parties accountable for repairing the damage and repaying Americans who’ve suffered a financial loss,” it added.

Clean-up operations so far managed to recover more than 260,000 barrels of oil water mixture through the use of skimming vessels at the oil slick site, with 62,000 barrels more oil removed through controlled burns that were conducted, the government statement said.